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In January 2011, President Obama spoke at a memorial service in Tucson, Arizona to honor the victims of a massacre that left 6 people dead, including a federal judge and a 9 year-old girl and left 13 others wounded, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who suffered a grievous gunshot wound to the head.

Liberals, including the editorial writers at the New York Times, were quick to link the mayhem to conservative hate speech, even though it turned out that the gunman was a mentally unstable young man who by all accounts had no interest in politics of any kind.

The president, doing his best to keep politics and partisanship out of his talk, was eloquent, as he called for civility and decency in our national conversation.

"But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized," he said, "at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do  it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

He also said, "Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."

Some of us were naive enough to believe he meant it. And maybe he did. Then.

The other day, just before the Michigan legislature voted in a new right-to-work law that infuriated labor leaders, a state Democratic Representative, speaking on the House floor, said, "There will be blood, there will be repercussions."

"There will be blood." Was that just an unfortunate figure of speech? Or was it the kind of angry language that President Obama had warned us against? Whichever it was, Mr. Obama, who opposed the Michigan legislation, which he deemed anti-union, said nothing about this incivility. If he was worried about where that kind of bloody rhetoric might lead, he wasn't sharing it with the American people.

Then, right after the vote, Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa told CNN that, "This is just the first round of a battle that's going to divide this state. We're going to have a civil war."

By the way, this was the same Jimmy Hoffa who, during a campaign rally in Detroit this year, said his union was ready to "go to war" for the president and "take out these son of a bitches" who oppose Mr. Obama and Big Labor.

When the president came on stage, he said nothing about the tone or the incivility of his friend, Mr. Hoffa.

Meanwhile, at the state capital in Lansing, union thugs, in between dropping F-bombs at a rally protesting the new law, repeatedly punched a conservative supporter of the law in the face, while another man threatened to kill him with a gun.

So far, the president has said nothing about this incident, either  perhaps because these were goons who helped get him re-elected last month.

Let's remember what President Obama said in Tucson. "But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do  it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

Whatever else one may think of this president, he's good with words. Even when that's all they are  empty, meaningless words.

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JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.

Previously:

•12/10/12: Do You Believe in Magic?
•12/04/12: Obama and the Dolts Deserve Each Other
•11/27/12: When the Ends Justify the Meanness
•11/20/12: Our Mesmerizer-in-Chief
•11/19/12: This Pretty Much Sums It Up . . .
•11/12/12: Santa Claus and the GOP Civil War
•11/07/12: Obama Wins . . . and Loses
•11/01/12: Out on a Limb, Predicting A Big Victory For . . .
•11/01/12: Should Mitt Talk to Bill?
•10/30/12: Really Dumb Conservatives . . .
•10/23/12: Debate #3: How Much Does Foreign Policy Matter If You Can't Find a Job?
•10/22/12: When Conservatives Are As Dopey as Liberals . . .
•10/19/12: Journalists' Who Don't Even Try to Hide Their Bias
•10/17/12: Obama Stopped the Bleeding --- But Was That Enough to Change the Momentum?
•10/15/12: No Winner in the Debate --- But Maybe a Loser
•10/08/12: The October Surprise
•10/04/12: Civil War in the GOP Could Go Nuclear on Nov 7
•10/01/12: Even If He Wins, Obama Will Lose
•09/27/12: Obama Picks Up a Crucial Demographic
•09/26/12: If Obama Thinks He Inherited a Mess Four Years Ago . . .
•09/24/12: A Good Way to Kill Free Speech
•08/30/12: Facts I Have Uncovered About the Real Mitt Romney
•08/23/12: Hope and Change, R.I.P.s
•08/16/12: Who's Smarter: Joe Biden or Yogi Berra?
•08/13/12: His Silence Makes Him Complicit
•08/07/12: Did You Know that Harry Reid Got Rich Pimping Out HOs?
•08/02/12: Like Birds on a Telephone Wire
•07/30/12: What Me Worry? YES!
•07/26/27: The Mystery Continues --- A Tale of Two Polls
•07/16/27: We've Set a Low Bar for 'Courage'
•07/11/27: Will Class Warfare Work?
•07/09/27: A Brave New World
•07/02/27: Now the Fun Really Starts
•06/19/27: You Can't Make This Stuff Up . . .
•06/19/12: I Would Have Fired Him Before He Got Back to the Office
•06/12/12: Time to Crush the Myth about Gender Pay Inequality
•06/06/12: The Desperate Campaign of Barack Obama
•06/01/12: Hey Fatso! Listen Up!
•05/25/12: Going After the Stupid Vote
•05/22/12: The X Factor(s)!
•05/15/12: Obama Has a Halo; Newsweek Has No Shame
•05/10/12: Authoritarians on Campus
•05/08/12: Obama's Path to Victory: Divide and Conquer
•05/01/12: President Cool Meets Reality
•04/25/12: Why Media Bias Matters
•04/17/12: NYT: At It Again
•04/13/12: Kissing up to the Rev. Al
•04/10/12: This Just In: War Breaks Out --- Thank You, Lord
•04/03/12: In Cold Blood?
•03/27/12: Trayvon Martin and Media Hypocrisy
•03/26/12: Time to Go, Rick
•03/22/12: Obama's Mantra: Don't Blame Me
•03/19/12: The U.N. Human Rights Council --- and other Jokes
•03/13/12: Bias in the News: Blame it on Their Zip Code
•03/06/12: Thank Heaven for Rich People --- a Second Look
•02/29/12: Some Free Advice for the Republican Field
•02/28/12: Do We Have a Right to Lie?
•02/16/12: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff?
•02/06/12: The 5 Stages of Mitt
•02/02/12: Florida Has Spoken; Cue the Fat Lady
•01/30/12: The Other Global Warming Story
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•01/24/12: The Arrogant and Clueless Mainstream Media
•01/23/12: Gingrich Wins SC --- Media Help Big Time
•01/18/12: A New Entry for 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
•01/12/12: The Dream Ticket Could Be a Conservative Nightmare
•01/11/12: Now 'Anybody But Romney' Has a Name
•12/30/11: I Have a Confession to Make . . .
•12/27/11: Know When to Hold 'em and Know When to Fold 'em
•12/20/11: NBC News, the KKK and the State of Journalism
•12/19/11: Mitt and Newt: Two Rich Guys Arguing Over Money
•12/13/11: Donald Trump Is the Greatest; Just Ask Him
•12/12/11: Rob Peter to Pay Paul: Bad Economics! Good Politics?
•12/07/11: Yeah . . . and Fish Don't Know They're Wet, Either
•12/06/11: Did the Media Play Fair with Herman Cain?
•12/05/11: Obama to Blue-Collar America: Adios!
•11/29/11: We Can Stop the Crazy Train Before It Gets to Greece
•11/22/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
•11/15/11: The Dumbest Media Question I've Ever Heard
•11/09/11: What If Herman Cain Did It?
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•10/04/11: Can Obama Win Re-Election?
•09/27/11: It's NOT the Economy Stupid, It's Theology
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•09/09/11: Hypocrisy!
•09/06/11: Back to the Future
•08/24/11: Hillary vs. Obama in 2012? It'll Never Happen --- I Don't Think
•08/22/11: Warning: Conservatives May Be Harmful to Your Mental Health
•08/17/11: Warren Buffett, Coddled Billionaire
•08/11/11: Too Much Balance in the Media?
•08/04/11: All Aboard the Crazy Train
•08/01/11: Liberal Hate Speech
•07/25/11: With All Due Respect, Go Fly a Kite
•07/20/11: Who Is A Natural Born Citizen?
•07/18/11: Guess Who's Not Paying Their Fair Share
•07/12/11: Against More Taxes? You May Be a Terrorist!
•07/11/11: Casey Anthony: The TV Show
•07/06/11: Standards and Double Standards at MSNBC
•06/29/11: Is Jon Stewart A Racist?
•06/21/11: Let's Play the Race Card --- Just for Fun Of Course
•06/20/11: Sarah Palin and Weiner's Weiner
•06/03/11: Memo to GOP: Turn Mr. Obama into Mr. Yesterday
•05/20/11: I Get Letters From People Who Should Be Locked Up
•05/09/11: Is Torture Ever Justified?•05/02/11: The Promiscuous Use of the R Word•04/19/11: The Man Behind the Million Dollar Smile•04/12/11: What's the Difference Between Libs in Politics and Libs in the Media?•04/08/11: An Idea Whose Time Has Come  and Gone•03/28/11: The Pundits Are Driving Me Crazy --- And You Thought Qadaffi Is Nuts•03/14/11: No Liberal Bias at NPR  Just Ask NPR•03/10/11: The media's frustration •03/01/11: Progressives Lost in Time . . .•02/23/11: The Lamestreams Strike Again --- This Time in Madison•02/03/11: You MUST Own a Gun --- Or Else!•01/20/11: It Was Horrible, I tell you … HORRIBLE!•01/11/11: Here We Go Again . . .•01/06/11: You Go, Oprah•12/28/10: A Year-Ender --- The MSM and Obama's Fall from Grace
•12/14/10: Thank Heaven for Rich People